Cruise Worker Assaults 14-year-old Girl

A staffer of Royal Caribbean Cruises has been charged for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl during an Adventure of the Seas sailing. The 25-year-old, Fabian Palmer, is a pool attendant for the cruise line and has been accused of taking the girl into a men’s locker room and having sexual intercourse with her. The girl was on holiday with her family at the time, and the incident happened just days before Christmas.

The girl and her family departed Baltimore, Maryland for the Royal Caribbean cruise on December 17. The 14-year-old told authorities about the attack just two days before Christmas. She said that encounter with Palmer started when she was alone on the deck. He took her inside a men’s locker room and started having sex with her. She added that another employee knocked on the door, and he stopped. A complaint filed with the US District Court says that CCTV footage caught Palmer, the girl and another staffer outside th e locker room around the time of the incident.

Palmer was interviewed by Royal Caribbean Cruises’ staff and admitted to having sexual relations with the girl. However, he claims to have been under the impression that she was 16, rather than 14. His Facebook profile says he was born in Jamaica and lives in Spain. On January 11, prosecutors indicted him on a single count of sexual assault on a minor.

This alleged attack is one in a series of sexual abuse among young girls on holiday cruises with their families. A 15-year-old was allegedly lured from a nightclub on a Royal Caribbean ship to a private room and raped by 20-year-old Luiz Scavone and a 15-year-old male. She was on a Christmas holiday cruise with her family at the time. Both men are Brazilian nationals and were arrested when the vessel returned to port.

A sexual assault also happened between a 14-year-old girl and 35-year-old waiter Kert Clyde Jordan on Carnival Cruise Lines’ Carnival Liberty in November. He has been charged with engaging in a sexual act with a minor. The US Attorney’s Office has claimed that the assault happened twice.

Just ten days before this Carnival incident, 19-year-old Dylan Cole Bloodsworth was sentenced to jail for ten years after raping a 13-year-old girl on a Carnival Cruise Lines ship in Mexico last March. The incident happened while she was on holiday with her family, and Bloodsworth pleaded guilty to the charge in November. The sentencing will likely be about the same for the more recent attacks, while though there is no federal law for statutory rape on ships while they are at sea.